Graphoidal Developments, a designer and manufacturer of advanced lubrication and coating systems for the glass container and tableware industries, has been using turbine flowmeters from Titan Enterprises for 20 years ago. The company installs flowmeters in its water lines to monitor the application of coolant to the shears that are used to cut semi-molten glass in bottle-making machines. The accurate application of a lubricant and coolant is critical to the reliability of the machine.

Initial installations of Graphoidal machines in Europe, fitted with Titan flowmeters, proved reliable. However, as the success of the Graphoidal machines spread, a flow monitoring problem became apparent. Older glass bottle-making plants often had steel piping, which rusted. The deposition of rust in the water coolant lines not only abraded the machines’ bearings but also rendered the turbine flowmeters inaccurate. Graphoidal recognised that in some locations a regular supply of clean potable water was not possible and excessive filtering, to remove rust, with the corresponding pressure drop and reduced service intervals were not options.

As a result, Graphoidal approached Titan Enterprises to develop an alternative flowmeter that would be immune to the ‘dirty water’ problem, could operate over a wide dynamic flow range, had identical electronic outputs and would fit into the same space as the existing turbine flowmeter. Titan’s proprietary Atrato ultrasonic flowmeter technology offered a solution but required modification to fit in the desired space and reduction of the sophisticated electronics to help meet target unit prices.

Key benefits of product application

The pipe connections on Graphoidal machines were fixed so Titan chose to turn the Atrato flowmeter sensing element to be 90° to the fluid path with a manifold to make the connections. However, this made the meter too big for the available cabinet space. Titan then experimented with bending the flow passage around 180° while still carrying the ultrasound. Using unique algorithms, this technique proved to be successful, so the sensors could be placed on the manifold and both the flow and the ultrasonic signals being bent around a 28mm-diameter 180° arc.

The flowmeter electronics were redesigned to match the customer’s specification and any extraneous functions not required by Graphoidal machines eliminated. The closure for the housing was made into a robust plastic cover to keep the costs down.

While the resulting product is more expensive than the turbine flowmeter it replaced, its advantages outweigh the drawbacks. Each meter has an identical ‘K’ factor so no individual calibration of a Graphoidal machine’s PLC is required. A single ultrasonic flowmeter is able to cover multiple flow ranges enabling reduced inventory to be held by Graphoidal.

As the Atrato ultrasonic flowmeter has no moving parts, there are no parts to wear out due to rust abrasion.

The flowmeter has proven itself reliable, even in some of the former troublesome plants, so fewer call-outs for faulty measurement systems due to inferior water supplies have been required.

Titan Enterprises

With more than 40 years’ experience in flowmeter innovation — Titan Enterprises Ltd is a UK-based manufacturer of high-performance solutions such as the Atrato ultrasonic flowmeter, oval gear flowmeters and the low flow turbine flowmeters and instrument range. Our knowledgable team can offer either an off-the-shelf meter or fully bespoke flow system designed for a particular application, whether it is a low-cost OEM solution or a specialist flowmeter in exotic materials you are looking for.

With more than 40 years’ experience in flowmeter innovation — Titan Enterprises Ltd is a UK-based manufacturer of high-performance solutions such as the Atrato ultrasonic flowmeter, oval gear flowmeters and the low flow turbine flowmeters and instrument range. Our knowledgable team can offer either an off-the-shelf meter or fully bespoke flow system designed for a particular application, whether it is a low-cost OEM solution or a specialist flowmeter in exotic materials you are looking for.

Titan’s company philosophy of ‘pushing the envelope by trying to do things a little different and better’ has resulted in sales of more than 500,000 products in 50 countries worldwide and a repeat purchase percentage of 95 per cent — something that founder Trevor Forster is justly proud of.

Today, Titan supplies innovative flow measurement solutions to a broad range of sectors, including medical, industrial, food and drink, laboratory and pharmaceutical. Its latest innovation — the Atrato flowmeter range — is set to challenge conventional flowmeter thinking the world over. The culmination of eight years’ research and development in collaboration with the Department of Process & Engineering at Cranfield University (UK), it can handle low flows from laminar to turbulent and is largely immune from viscosity effects.

For higher-volume users we can tailor the design of a flowmeter to match your exact application requirements and thus not compromise achievable results with a less-than-ideal sensor. The resultant device would be unique to your application but would still benefit from Titan’s tried-and-tested, modern manufacturing methods to ensure a competitive OEM solution. From an initial concept Titan can offer a complete service from budget costings through prototypes to full production. Often the cost of origination and tooling can be amortised over the life of the product.

All flowmeters produced by Titan are designed and manufactured to ISO9001 and calibrated to an uncertainty of ±0.25 per cent. We produce chemically resistant, high-accuracy digital flowmeters that are not only competitively priced but are engineered to give long-term reliable performance.

However, the value of a flowmeter cannot be judged by price alone. Often in industrial applications the reliability of a product far outweighs the initial purchase price as ‘downtime’ is extremely expensive. At Titan, we endeavour to produce devices that are inherently reliable but are manufactured using the latest and most economical production techniques.